Prior art devices for spraying fragrances, deodorising agents and sanitising fluids into a room consist of a mechanically actuated arm which is periodically activated to press down on a spray head secured to an aerosol canister containing the material to be sprayed.
The prior art devices are typically constructed as follows. An outer casing has an opening through which the spray is ejected. The casing has a removable section which is removed to allow a refill canister containing the spray material to be placed in the casing. A moulded spray head, comprised of two discrete parts, a main body 1 and an insert 9, as shown in FIG. 1, is placed over the outlet stem of an aerosol spray can. The spray head has an inlet section having an opening to be placed over the outlet stem of the aerosol canister. The spray head also has an outlet section comprising the insert 9. The actuation arm is located over the spray head and is caused periodically to press against the spray head to cause material from the aerosol can to be ejected through the spray head out of the opening in the casing and into the surroundings. The actuator arm is either battery powered or mains powered and can be set to activate at various time intervals which, for example, may be to activate every seven minutes, every fifteen minutes or every thirty minutes, whichever is set by a user.
A commercial example of such a device is the Air Wick Freshmatic® device.
A problem with the use of these devices is the complexity of their construction. The insert is required to provide the desired characteristics of the spray output. The internal shape and arrangement of the insert is varied to break up the spray output depending many parameters including the pressure of the canister, chemical formulation used, required spray pattern and droplet size.
It is an objective of the present invention to attempt to overcome these problems.